Former Romney Campaign Advisor: Obama Intended to Meddle in Elections With Israel Comments

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Prime Minister Netanyahu.

A former foreign policy adviser to Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign tweeted Tuesday that during a recent trip to Israel two U.S. officials said recent comments by Barack Obama were intended to undermine Benjamin Netanyahu’s election bid.

Dan Senor, who is also co-founder of the Foreign Policy Initiative, also tweeted that the officials said the move had probably backfired.

Senor's tweets. Photo: Twitter.

Last week U.S. Journalist Jeffrey Goldberg reported that Barack Obama had said privately, “Israel doesn’t know what its own best interests are.”

The story was neither confirmed nor denied by the Obama Administration but in Israel it received push back. Likud officials accused Obama of “gross interference” in the Israeli election and said the president was “taking revenge” against Netanyahu for his perceived intervention in the November US election on behalf of unsuccessful Republican challenger Mitt Romney. The comments also elicited a response from Netanyahu, who told Israel Hayom: “I think that President Obama knows that only the citizens of Israel will determine what Israel’s vital interests are, and they will be the ones who decide who is best suited to protect these interests in the best possible way.”

Tuesday, Israelis went to the polls to vote for their next government. Senor tweeted that whether or not the U.S. officials’ belief that Obama’s strategy backfired will be determined when the results are made available.